Mowing bars generally comprise a finger bar with several arranged mowing fingers. A mowing sickle is reciprocatingly guided relative to the finger bar. The sickle comprises a sickle bar with several mounted sickle blades. The sickle blades form cutting edges that interact with counter cutting edges that are formed by the mowing fingers.
Sickle blades generally have a triangular base shape. During the cutting process, the harvesting goods are pressed, by reciprocating movement of the sickle blades of the mowing sickle, against the mowing fingers and cut. During such a scissor-like cutting process, each individual sickle blade is pushed backwards by the cutting load, when viewed in a working direction. In order to hold the mowing sickle in its position relative to the finger bar, a supporting guidance of the mowing sickle relative to the finger bar is necessary. Such a guide is shown in publication number DE 198 50 261 A1. Here, on the mowing bar, a sheet metal guide, that forms a guide face, extends in a direction of the movement direction of the mowing sickle. The sheet metal guide faces the mowing sickle and is mounted on the finger bar. The mowing sickle is supported, when viewed in the working direction, to the rear with the sickle bar on the guide face of the sheet metal guide. While the sickle bar is reciprocatingly moved, the sheet metal guide is rigidly mounted on the finger bar. The mowing sickle is pushed independently of the cutting force more or less strongly against the sheet metal guide. The cutting force can greatly increase due to the difficulty of cutting the harvesting goods or due to blunt sickle blades. Thus, increased frictional forces act between the sickle bar and the sheet metal guide. This leads to large wear on the sickle bar and on the sheet metal guide. Furthermore, besides the driving energy, that is necessary to cut the harvesting goods, a large portion of the driving energy is necessary for the reciprocating movement of the mowing sickle. The necessary driving energy for the movement of the mowing sickle is often higher than the necessary driving energy for the cutting process.
According to European Patent No. EP 1 551 214 B1, frictional force is reduced by a roller guide. The roller holders, in the form of a bridge between, respectively, two mowing fingers, offer a stable support of the rollers and ensure a passing-through of dirt. No frictional resistance has to be overcome between the mowing sickle and the finger bar. Only the rolling friction of the rollers has to be overcome, which is a distinctly smaller amount. The rollers can be formed with circumferentially extending collars that reduce tipping of the mowing sickle by the cutting forces. The mowing sickle can still be deformed between the rollers, in so far as it is not guided by a mowing finger. Especially, when using double mowing fingers, no roller is mounted in the intermediate space, thus it can be deformed. If the sickle blades enter against a mowing finger, a large friction is produced between the cutting edge of the mowing finger and the sickle blade, which leads to large wear.